Matthew Feldman

The two major party candidates for governor are not likely to agree on a rather complex issue: does the private investment firm Texas Pacific Group (TPG) have a clear connection to TPG-Axon, a hedge fund run out of the same office?

Gov. Jon Corzine has some of his personal fortune invested with TPG-Axon, which sounds similar to TPG.  Corzine maintains that the two companies have separate identities, and that it is unfair to accuse him of having a financial interest in casinos when it's TPG, not TPG-Axon, that invests in the gaming industry.   Republican Christopher Christie thinks that two companies run by the same people sharing the same office are essentially the same company.

The 2009 campaign includes other allegations where both sides have very different views of the world.  And New Jersey politics has a history of similar unsolved mysteries:

Until the 1970's, Assembly Speakers served a single one-year term under a system where party leadership positions were rotated annually in both houses of the Legislature.  Legislators worked their way up in the rotation, usually from Assistant Whip to Whip to Assistant Leader to Leader to Speaker. 

Thomas Kean (R-Livingston) became the first two-term Assembly Speaker.  He was elected in advance of the 1972 session after the 39-member Assembly Republican caucus cut a deal with four Democrats from Hudson and Union counties to organize the Assembly.  He spent two years as Speaker, and four years as Minority Leader after Democrats won 66 seats in the 1973 election.

Christopher Jackman (D-West New York) became person to serve four years as Speaker (he served from 1978-82), followed by similar stints by Alan Karcher (D-Sayreville) and Chuck Hardwick (R-Westfield).  Jack Collins (R-Elmer) became the first person to spend six years as Speaker - the longest stint in state history.

ELEC Photo

Former Assembly Majority Leader Albert Burstein

Two Democratic members of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, who may play a critical role in deciding the fate of Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Lonegan, are Trenton veterans who have spent six decades in New Jersey politics.  Both Albert Burstein and Jerry Fitzgerald English have enjoyed successful political careers, although each fell quite short of achieving their full public service ambitions.

Burstein (D-Tenafly), now 86-years-old, was widely viewed as one of the most intellectually superior and independent members of the New Jersey Legislature, where he served from 1972 to 1982, but he was also a late bloomer who fell short in several opportunities to move up.  Burstein started out in politics in 1959 as counsel to the Jersey City Charter Commission and became active in Tenafly politics in the 1960's.  He was elected to the State Assembly in 1971, when legislative redistricting created a new Englewood/Teaneck seat that leaned toward the Democrats.  Running with Byron Baer, Burstein beat Jim O'Dowd (who would later serve as Bergenfield Mayor and Bergen County Freeholder) by 2,335 votes.

When legislative districts were redrawn for the 1973 elections, the newly-created 37th became even more Democratic.  But neither Burstein nor Baer got the chance to challenge the incumbent Republican Senator, Joseph Woodcock.  That opportunity went to Bergen County Democratic Chairman Matthew Feldman, a former Teaneck Mayor who had served in the Senate from 1966 to 1968.  Feldman easily beat Woodcock and Burstein and Baer coasted to win second terms.

Republicans have never won in the 20th district, one of districts in the state that have never flipped parties. State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Elizabeth) won 57% in the GOP landslide year of 1991, the worst general election showing of his 32-year political career.

There was a redistricting frenzy after the U.S. Supreme Court's Reynolds v. Sims one man, one vote ruling of 1964.  The Legislature had a new map for the 1965 election, followed by additional maps in 1967, 1969, 1971, and 1973.  It wasn't until 1973 that New Jersey went to forty districts, each with one Senate seat and two Assembly seats.  Since that map, about three-quarters of the districts have elected legislators from both parties. 

The current 5th district went Democratic in 1973 when Assembly Minority Leader John Horn ousted one-term Republican State Sen. Frank Italiano.  Italiano was the last Republican legislator from the City of Camden.  He resigned his seat during the lame duck session after his appointment to the Superior Court.

Republicans have held the Somerset County-based 16th district, although future Commissioner of Human Services Tim Carden nearly won an Assembly seat in 1977, even though State Sen. Raymond Bateman was at the top of the ticket as the GOP candidate for Governor.

Democrats have never lost the Middlesex-based 17th, which was dominated by the father and son John Lynch team despite the younger Lynch's near-loss to Edward Tiller in 1991.  The district was briefly represented by a Republican when Assemblywoman Angela Perun switched parties after Democrats dropped her from their ticket in 1985.  As a Republican, she lost by just a few hundred votes to the Mayor of Piscataway, Bob Smith.

In 1991, Republicans almost won an Assembly seat in the Union County-based 20th, when Richard Hunt came within 900 votes of beating the venerable Thomas Dunn, the seven-term Mayor of Elizabeth and former State Senator.  Raymond Lesniak won a fourth term with 57% of the vote, the lowest general election percentage of his thirty year political career.

Three Essex County districts have never elected Republicans: the ones now represented by Richard Codey, Ronald Rice and Teresa Ruiz.  Another Essex district, won by Democrats in 1973 when Nutley Mayor Carmen Orechio ousted Republican State Sen. Michael Giuliano, regularly elected Democrats and Republicans to the Assembly until it was eliminated in 1991.  The seat was shifted to Ocean and Burlington counties, and now the 30th only elects Republicans.

While Republicans held four Hudson County Assembly seats (Districts 32 and 33) from 1986 to 1988 - their first legislative victory since 1920 - Democrats have never lost the 31st.  Their closest call came in 1991, when Bret Schundler won 42% against Democratic State Sen. Edward O'Connor.  Schundler was elected Mayor the following year in a non-partisan race. 

In Bergen County, Democrats have kept a firm grip on the 37th since Matthew Feldman ousted Republican State Sen. Joseph Woodcock in 1973.  And the Republicans have never lost in the 40th, which now includes parts of Passaic and Essex counties.

Under the current map drawn in 2001, districts 1, 2, 4, 7, 12, 14, 36, and 38 have been won by at least one Democrat and one Republican. 

Over the years, there have been some surprise winners - usually in a landslide year like 1973, 1985 or 1991.  A partial list includes:

My Tribute to Byron Baer
By Paul Swibinski

I met Byron in 1976, when he ran for Congress against Henry Helstoski, who eventually won after a scandal involving over 2000 altered absentee ballots. I was a young volunteer at that time. Later I became his media consultant and worked on all of his campaigns.

In 1993, Byron and Englewood Mayor Donald Aronson (also a friend and client) both wanted to succeed retiring Senator Matty Feldman and appeared before the District 37 county committee convention seeking the party endorsement.

Paul Fader was working for Don and I was working for Byron. Paul and I were both very intense and we began arguing over where campaign posters would be placed. We had one of those "gentleman square-offs" where we circled each other, both waiting for someone to separate us because neither wanted to throw a punch. Fortunately someone did!

During a 34-year career in the New Jersey Legislature, Byron Baer had six Democratic running mates that served with him in Trenton: Albert Burstein, a former Assembly Majority Leader who served from 1972 to 1982; Bennett Mazur, who served from Burstein's retirement until his resignation, due to illness, in 1992; Loretta Weinberg, who had been Mazur's legislative aide, from 1992 until 2005; Charles "Ken" Zisa, who went to the Assembly when Baer moved up to the Senate in 1993 and served until he ran for Bergen County Sheriff in 2001; and Gordon Johnson, who replaced Zisa. During Baer's 22 years as an Assemblyman, he served with State Senator Matthew Feldman, who defeated GOP Senator Joseph Woodcock in 1973.